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Even if you’d never heard his name before, you might think you knew
him. Something about the slightly petulant, pouting face, and the
arresting blue eyes, so unwavering in their gaze, daring you to
follow, anywhere he led in those skintight white pants, or the black
leather ones with the fringed boots, his curtain of blond hair
catching the breeze beneath a faded cowboy hat. Something so
familiar about him, as if he were a repository of every gay fantasy,
and especially that prodigious crotch. Something almost alarming
about that member packed in so tight, outlining everything from meat
to potatoes. And you might swear that you’d seen him leaning at the
Meatrack the other evening, or wandering the piers the night before.
And also cruising the park and the beach and late at night down on
Folsom Street. And you’d be right in thinking you knew him, because
that boyman was Peter Berlin. So known as to be notorious, so very
well-known, he was recognized by his walk, that cocky strut, as well
as the blatant sexuality of his clothing, and the complete absence
of shame, none whatsoever about all that he was and represented to
gay men.
That Man: Peter Berlin, Jim Tushinski’s poignant documentary, lets
you see the man behind the icon, the story behind the myth. And over
the course of the film’s eighty minutes, it becomes increasingly
apparent how far-reaching Peter Berlin’s influence has been in
matters of fashion and fantasy. Still comfortable with his persona
at sixty-three, Berlin exudes a kind of relaxed sexuality, a man in
touch with his desires, who happens to have made his desires his
art, and his art his life. There are certainly worse ways to live
the years given you on this planet and Berlin is a testament to the
self-confidence that can come from learning early on who you are and
what you need. In an almost elegiac reverie, Berlin recounts one of
his first nights cruising in a German forest, not long after
realizing that his family could not provide him with that he most
needed to become the person he knew himself to be, and his detailed
remembrance of that night and the smell of the linden flowers and
his awareness of the freedom which was happening all around him
serve to remind all of us of the very great freedom which comes from
honoring one’s self. |
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